Quote for today

Quote for today

Reading the current 'Earth Garden' magazine this morning and this stood out to me.

"The exercise, fresh air, sun and soil makes me happier," she says. "Apparently certain soil bacteria release serotonin in our brains, so gardening really is the ultimate in stress relief!" Kay Lavers, Earth Garden, #168

What do you think? Is she onto something?

Cheers

Stewart

The Checkout.

ORGANIC We pay a hefty premium for “organic” foods – Kirsten Drysdale asks if extra costs are justified.

Did anyone watch The Checkout Ep 11 on the ABC last night? Here is a direct link.

There was a seven and a half minute segment arguing the pros and cons of growing and eating Organic Food. I'm curious what your thought are? Leave me a line in the comments.

I found it interesting but I won't be giving up my Veggie Garden anytime in the near future because of it.



Cheers

Stewart.

TOMATO-BUSH-AUSTRALIAN RED

Gees, It's only the first week of winter and I'm already thinking Spring/Summer.

Tomatoes

The tomatoes are all bush varieties and hopefully have good disease resistance. I want the bush varieties this time around so I can just bang a tomato in the garden here and there and not have to go to all the trouble of staking. That's the theory, I'll see how it goes over the summer.

And the disease resistance varieties because the varieties I planted were just ravaged this Summer gone.

Rangeview Seeds

I'm trying a new seed company this time. Rangeview Seeds, not for any particular reason. I saw an ad in a magazine and saw a few varieties I'd like to try.

AUSTRALIAN RED

 Spring/Summer order

Order Number: JYUHHQWRJ
Order Date: 2014-06-04
Payment Method: PayPal $28.74
Product / Reference Unit Price (Tax Excl.)
Discount Qty Total (Tax Excl.)
CAMOMILE - GERMAN - BODEGOLD - ORGANIC $3.50 -- 1 $3.50
MELON-WATERMELON-GOLDEN MIDGET $3.50 -- 1 $3.50
TOMATO-BUSH-AUSTRALIAN RED $3.50 -- 1 $3.50
TOMATO-BUSH-JAUNE NEGIB $3.50 -- 1 $3.50
COSMOS-BRIGHT LIGHTS $3.50 -- 1 $3.50
BORAGE - ORGANIC $3.50 -- 1 $3.50
TOMATO-BUSH-KEEPSAKE $3.50 -- 1 $3.50
Product Total (Tax Excl.) $24.50
Product Total (Tax Incl.) $24.50
Shipping Cost $3.85
Total Tax $0.39
Total $28.70

Used Coffee Grounds (UCGs)

 Used Coffee Grounds

My daughter works at The Coffee Club here at the new Northpoint Shopping Center they built just for us and, being just around the corner, I asked her what they did with their Used Coffee Grounds (UCGs) and she said they just threw them away. Naturally the next question was, may I have them? And the answer was, yes.

Now I'm getting about five to six, 10 litre buckets of used grounds a week. All good.

But at first I wasn't sure if this was a good idea or not so I jumped on to Google (UCGs in the garden) and was quickly reassured that this was a good thing. A real good thing.

Coffee everywhere

There is several ways to use UCGs including adding it to your compost or once you have compost you can add UCGs at a ratio of one to three before applying to your garden beds. Snails and slugs aren't supposed to like it. I've added it directly to my plants with good results and used it as a week liquid fertiliser. So far so good. You can also scatter it over your lawn as a slow release fertiliser.

Experimenting

I'll keep experimenting with it and see what results I get but in the meantime if anyone else has any experience with UCGs I love to hear from you.


Two weeks ago I added two to three hand fulls around each of my silverbeet and I'll swear theyhave  doubled in size.

The only part I'm unsure about is using UCGs on plants that like a non acid soil. Plants like beans, peas and cucurbits. From what I can tell UCGs are acidic and notagood idea to add diredctly to the soil around these plants.

In The Garden

In the flowering garden then acid loving plants like azaleas, camellias and hydrangeas would love some UCGs as well as plants like blueberries and strawberries would benefit as well.

It's stopped raining now, just a short shower really, so I'm heading back out to the veggie patch to spread more coffee.

Cheers

Stewart.

P.S. My Plants do look very alert and attentive, :)

:(

It's raining on my gardening day off from work. :(

Help Wanted

I like a few broad beans with my weeds.

Slow Day

 It was a very slow day in taxi-land today and gnawing away in the back of my mind was my patch of broad beans that were getting over grown with weeds. Chickweed mainly. I was thinking all this sitting around doing next to nothing and I could be home tidying up the broad beans.

Eventually I won the argument with myself, which I'm told is a good thing, packed up the cab and went home.

To cut or not to cut.

 Help Wanted

This is where you come in. While I was weeding the first row it became obvious that the main stem has grown very long and lanky and at the same time two new shoots have grown from near the base.
What I'd like to know is, would you cut the main  stem back to these new shoots, as I did on the first row and leaving the rest, or leave them as is?

 Before

 After

 

 

 

 

 

Weeds be gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Half weeded

And done.

I'm so glad I finished work early now. I feel like I have achieved something for the day.









Cheers for now.

Stewart.